Energy sources used in for generation of electricity include wind, water, solar, nuclear and chemical reactions have been developed for using such energy to generate electricity, typically by performing useful work to drive an electric generator.
Chemical reaction, in particular, fuel burning consumes limited natural resources and produces unwanted wastes.
Many efforts have been made to exploit previously unused energy sources. Many methods and systems have been proposed to use existing forces or mechanical work to generate electrical power.
In particular, several systems and methods have been developed to capture and use the kinetic energy contained within the wind.
Due to the fact that natural wind speed does not exceed just several miles per hour at most of times, to commercially adopt a wind powered electricity generator typically requires a large scale device. Such as a wind impeller. A book entitled Wind Power for Home & Business—Renewable Energy for 1990 and Beyond by Paul Gipe provides a detailed description about using wind impellers as wind powered generators, for example.
Another category of wind powered devices include wind turbine type with the rotational axis being generally perpendicular to the wind flow direction.
These devices are designed by using natural wind in mind, which has relatively low speed and most importantly, and is unidirectional.